Chaff in the Wind
by Brynneth
Summary: Entry for the Asunder Dragon Age Writing Challenge.  Magic can heal a family, and it can destroy it.  The story of one family's choice.


_**A/N:** This was my entry to the Asunder Creative Writing Challenge. Many thanks to Zevgirl for her invaluable beta work! All Chant of the Light verses are the property of Bioware._

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><p><strong>At last did the Maker<strong>

**From the living world**

**Make men. Immutable, as the substance of the earth,**

**With souls made of dream and idea, hope and fear,**

**Endless possibilities.**

_-Threnodies 5:6_

"Allan!"

Emeline's shrill voice cuts through the wheat like a scythe, and he can almost see the stalks bend before her call. He scrubs at his face viciously, determined that she will not see him cry, but he forgets the grime of loamy soil on his hands and doesn't see the muddy streaks left behind on his cheeks. It matters little because Emeline always knows when he is upset, just as she knows all his favorite hiding places.

"I know you're in here, Allan." She is closer now, and he spies the blue flash of her apron as she crosses the row several paces from where he crouches. He doesn't want her here, but she will continue to search until she finds him, and by that time, Mother might find him as well.

"Over here!"

The wheat parts like a veil before his face, and Emeline peers down at him. With a sigh, she sinks to her knees beside him, heedless of the mud, which will undoubtedly earn her a tongue-lashing later.

"Was it those boys again?"

He sniffles and fixes his eyes stubbornly on the ground. "Dunno."

"It was. You just don't want to say." She crosses her arms in an unconscious imitation of Mother and glares at him. "You don't have to protect them, you know. They're just a bunch of stupid, little boys."

"They're the same age as me, and they're not little!"

"You're only ten. That is still little."

"Is not. And you're only thirteen, so don't get all prissy!" His hands clench, and he needs desperately to grasp something... anything that will give him some measure of control. Next to him sags a stalk of wheat, bent and trampled from his arrival. He rips off the tassle and runs it across his palm, feeling each separate bristle caress his calloused skin.

"What were they saying this time?"

"Nothing." That will never do; she will pester him until he answers satisfactorily. It's why he hates when she chases him. It's why she knows him better than anyone else.

"They said that we're no better than beggars. That we live in a pig sty and wear dirty clothes. That we always smell like cows and have lice." He digs his thumbnail into the tassel and scrapes the kernels off in a single slide along the stem. The yellow pods litter the dirt like flecks of gold.

"Well, we do have a few cows and pigs, but we live _inside_ and they live _outside_. Our clothes may be a bit ragged, but Mother washes them all the time. And we definitely don't have _lice_. So what's the problem?"

"I'm not a beggar!" There is a hole in his cotton trousers, and he picks at it in frustration. Biting his lower lip, he finally raises his head to meet Emeline's jade-green eyes. "Emmy, are we poor?"

"Money is scarce these days, you know that. Ever since the Blight, it's hard for farmers everywhere in Ferelden. So much of the land was hurt by those darkspawn." He shudders at the thought of darkspawn, monsters he has never seen but heard descibed many times by the veterans of Ferelden's army. "We were lucky that they never made it this far, but they ruined the roads too, and it's gonna take time for King Alistair to fix everything. Until then, Father's got trouble up to his chin figuring out how to get the crops where they're needed. And no one has the money to pay him."

"I miss the old days. We always had money then."

"Those days will return. We just have to wait, that's all." At his dubious frown, she places her fingers on both corners of his mouth and forces them up in a ghoulish smile. "Oh, come on. Look, how about if I show you something really neat? But you have to keep it a secret, even from Mother and Father, okay?"

Secrets were always such a thrill, like hoarding treasure that no one knew you had. "Okay." He tosses the shriveled stem aside and sits back on his haunches.

"Stay back a bit. I don't want to hurt you." He scoots away a few feet and watches as she cups both hands in front of her stomach. The air above her palms shimmers and compresses, suddenly exploding into a sphere of flame.

"Whoa!" He blinks fast, unable to clear the spots behind his eyelids from the sudden flare of light. Emeline grins and splits her hands apart, dividing the orb of fire into two orange globes that hover like overgrown fireflies. "How did you do that, Emmy?"

"I don't know exactly. One day I was just fooling around, and it seemed like if I just _pushed_ a little with my thoughts, I could make things happen. Like this." She moves her hands in front of her in a circular pattern, creating perfect rings of light.

"But Emmy... that's _magic_!"

"Of course it is. That's why you _cannot_ tell Mother, Father, or anybody. I don't want to get sent away like Jacob." Jacob was an older boy who had lived in town with his blacksmith father and helped tend the forge. Last year, the shop had burned down, and Jacob became the subject of local gossip when it was discovered that he accidentally started the blaze with magic. Two days later, templars arrived and escorted him away in shackles. Jacob's father had stood in front of his charred store as they left, beefy hands hanging limply at his sides, his eyes blank and empty. One week later, the blacksmith was gone, disappearing into the dark of night with only a backpack and shoulders slumped with sorrow.

That couldn't be allowed to happen to Emmy... not his _sister. _"I won't tell, but you better be careful and not burn anything up!"

"Oh, I'm smarter than Jacob." She snaps her fingers, and the dazzling balls of fire vanish. "Don't worry, Allan. No one will ever find out as long as I control it." She stands and tries to brush the mud off her knees but succeeds only in smearing it further into the creases of her skin. "Come on. Let's get you back in the house and washed up for dinner. Too bad I can't use this magic to light the fire in the hearth." She wiggles her fingers with an impish grin.

"Don't you dare!"

She laughs and takes his hand. "I was just kidding. They won't catch me lighting any flames!"

But it wasn't fire that betrayed her in the end.

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><p><strong>With passion'd breath does the darkness creep.<strong>

**It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep.**

_-Transfigurations 1:5_

The wolf is a loner, a scrawny male that has probably been chased from its pack by the alpha. It normally would have avoided people, but starvation will drive even the tamest animal from its territory, and the wolf was far from tame. When it spotted the woman hanging her wash on the line, it undoubtedly saw its last desperate chance at survival. All Allan sees is the splash of red on white sheets and his mother crumpled to the ground like a second heap of clothes.

It is instinct that gets him moving before his mind can comprehend the horror. He is muscular for a twelve-year-old, and he already holds a shovel in his hand, still half-buried in the soil he was digging when he heard the shriek that freezes him to the bone. The wolf is distracted by the heady taste of blood and turns its gaze to the boy too slowly. Allan catches a glimpse of defiant, yellow eyes just before the shovel comes crashing down on the canine's skull with a dull crack.

The grass, once green, has soaked black with the life of the woman who lies curled into a fetal ball, keening as she clutches her torn leg. Blind with pain, she fails to recognize Allan, who kneels beside her crying for Father. A flicker of blue shoots across his peripheral vision, and it's not his father crouching next to him, but Emeline, brow furrowed with fear. Her long, black hair brushes against Mother's blood, running in rivulets over jagged skin, but she doesn't pay it any heed as she lays her hands over the gaping wound.

For a moment, the memory of fiery spheres makes him tense, hands jerking forward in reflex —_stop, please— _but the magic that flows from Emeline's slender fingers is blue, not orange. His lips part, jaw slackening in wonder, as he watches ghostly tendrils twine into ripped muscle and encircle severed arteries. Vessel walls seal and tendons knit together as Emeline, eyes clenched shut, moves her fingers over the gash. By the time his sister slumps backward, they are all staring at her in amazement: Allan, Mother, and Father, who has finally arrived and is standing over Mother in a dazed shock.

As Emmy looks up to meet Father's eyes, the same shade of green as her own, Allan's stomach sinks, and he knows with sickening certainty what will happen.

"Father, please..." Maybe he can still stop this, if only he can speak before Father does.

"You are _maleficar_." That one word… it drips with disgust so potent it pollutes the air. Mother jerks back, away from Emeline and toward Father's legs, and Emmy flinches, her face sagging for just a moment before she squares her shoulders and hides her hurt behind a mask of defiance.

"I am not! I have no demon in me, and I just saved Mother! Magic isn't _all_ bad."

"Foul and corrupt are they who have taken His gift and turned it against His children. They shall be named Maleficar, accursed ones." The Chant falls from Father's lips like an insidious whisper of doom. His mouth freezes into stone and his eyes are chips of ice as he points a shaking finger at his daughter. "You will confine yourself to your room until the templars come."

"Father, no!"

His sister rises to her feet and flashes him a look. "Forget it, Allan. Some people are too blind to really see." She glances down at Mother who is crying with face averted, and her chin quivers. Turning on a scuffed heel, she walks to the house, back stiff with anguish.

The templars arrive three days later. The entire village stands by and watches as the armored men attach a strange collar around Emeline's neck and lead her out to the road. Father is little more than a statue positioned by the door, eyes hard and turned away. Mother is upstairs, and Allan is ashamed of her, that she cannot even watch as her daughter is led away like an animal. But the shame is even greater for him; it shrouds him like a cloak of needles, drawing blood from his soul as punishment for doing nothing as they take her away.

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><p><strong>Draw your last breath, my friends,<strong>

**Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky.**

**Rest at the Maker's right hand,**

**And be Forgiven.**

_-Trials 1:16_

"Emmy?"

It took ten years to get here: this dark and dreary tower where sound echoes like the mournful hoot of an owl and cold seeps endlessly through ancient stone. His parents had been so proud when he announced his wish to become a templar that it hurt… hurt because their pride was everything that their response to Emmy's magic was not. Emeline… Father forbade her name to be spoken, but still her presence lingered in the house gone dead and silent. It dwelled in every swing of his sword as he trained. It endured in every vow he took. _And now I'm here_, _and I've found her at last_.

Except he hasn't. The woman before him is taller than he remembers, and her lovely, raven hair has been cropped at the line of her jaw. Her skinny figure has filled out to the desirable curves of a maiden, and her skin has faded to a pale, creamy white. This is not the Emmy of his youth, but he is too ecstatic to notice.

"Emmy! It's me… Allan!"

What he was expecting he doesn't know, but it is not this barren, bland expression or the strange, uninflected voice.

"Hello, Allan. Is there something I can help you with?"

He stares desperately into dull, glassy eyes that are ashes in which every spark has been extinguished. When he reaches out to brush back the fringe of hair across her forehead, she doesn't even twitch. One trembling finger traces the sun symbol before finally drawing away from the woman he now realizes is no longer his sister. He has come far too late.

"Ser?"

"No, I'm fine." His throat feels constricted, burning with the salt of tears that he cannot release. "Never mind."

"Very well." She turns and walks away from him, down the dimly lit corridor and into a world grown foreign and frigid.

His feet find a path back to the barracks where his hands move without thought, shedding each piece of armor and arranging them neatly on his bunk. He clothes himself in a simple tunic and trousers and packs a light bag, for there is little he really needs. It is dinner time and the barracks are empty, but he can think of no one he wishes to speak with anyway.

At the dock, he tells the templar on guard that he has leave to visit his family, and the man does not question him. He sits in the back of the barge and stares out over the rippling water, watching the moonlight dance in shimmers of silver. When he arrives at the village by Lake Calenhad, the windows of the inn are alight with candles, and the door opens to welcome him with merry gales of laughter. But this is not his destination, and he strides past without pause or glance.

Ahead of him lies the road that leads north to West Hill and the Coastlands. As he reaches it, his numbed mind finally registers his surroundings. Row after row of wheat brackets the road ahead. He stretches out a fist and rips off a tassel, twirling it against his cheek and closing his eyes at the caress. Once more, he sees flecks of gold lying in dirt and balls of fire dancing in the air. With his thumbnail, he scrapes the kernels from the stem and holds his palm before his lips. With a single blast of breath, the seeds scatter into the air and disappear into the dark. He drops the stem and trudges up the road. Behind him, the Circle Tower looms against a background of stars, but he doesn't look back.


End file.
